Monday, April 13, 2009

Justice Society of America #25

Ugh. What a weird place the DCU is becoming. In this issue, Billy Batson gets tricked out in the same punk-dork look as his sister Mary got in Final Crisis, Isis gets reduced to a screaming madwoman, Black Adam is taken off the board, and eventually the entire Marvel family is depowered. Talk about taking my favorite things about the DCU off the board. The Power of Shazam was a wonderful series that explored the DCU with an innocent eye and explored the neat Marvel Family, and yet now they've been reduced to these weird stylized punks. There is such a fundamental disconnect from what the Marvel family could and should be, I just don't get it. I did like how Black Adam was portrayed here, Geoff Johns has always had his voice down perfectly. He is actually the voice of reason when dealing with his mad wife Isis. That kind of disappointed me, since I'm much more interested in Isis softening him rather than seeing her warped by the evil power of Black Adam. The JSA comes off well in this issue, especially Power Girl, who gets to do some fun stuff here. I was also pleased to see Atom Smasher rejoin the team, and that the grumpy old men squad woke up and kept everyone on the team. I had been annoyed how GL, Flash, and Wildcat weren't even consulting with the supposed team leader (Power Girl) in the last few issues, so seeing her having an active voice at the table was nice. I'm disappointed where the issue left off, with Adam and Isis frozen as statues, since their relationship is a dynamic one that often guides the DCU as a whole. My bigger complaint is with the depowering of the Marvels. I suppose this might just be to put everyone on the shelf for awhile so that there can be an eventual reboot, but at this point, I'm getting tired of those stories too.

I can't believe Jerry Ordway had to draw this. His work is always solid, and is again here, but I'm bummed that someone who wrote the Marvels so well had to draw this. It is a testament to the creative team that this is still a Fair when I disliked so many elements of the story.